Are you having difficulty setting goals or staying productive? Do you need help mastering Microsoft Word? You might consider taking some Lynda courses. There are a number of topics that relate to thesis work, including meeting deadlines, editing and proofreading, staying productive, and tips to enhance note-taking. There are even courses about Microsoft Word and other software products, which might help you with formatting issues that may arise. Lynda courses are free to all students, faculty, and staff. Learn more.

Your Career and Professional Development

Staying Organized on the Job Market as a Busy Grad Student

Tuesday, August 8, noon - 1 p.m., Lincoln Hall, room 1000

Deadlines, documents, contacts, references, institution research — there’s so much to keep track of when you’re job-hunting, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. In this workshop, we will discuss concrete strategies for managing information and staying organized on the job market. We’ll look at different approaches to staying organized, and you’ll leave with a plan that best suits your needs. This workshop is sponsored by Graduate College Career and Professsional Development and is for students pursuing faculty careers, non-academic careers, or both.

Handshake @ Illinois is the new career services platform for University of Illinois students and postdocs. Handshake is used by over 230,000 employers around the world, giving you access to more employers and job postings than ever before. Starting in August, you will need a Handshake account to request an appointment with the Graduate College Career Development Office. So create one now to avoid a delay later. Your account will be made for you within 3 business days.

NCSA Offering Cyberinfrastructure Internship

Application Deadline: August 15

The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) is offering a new full-time cyberinfrastructure internship for the Fall 2017 semester. This internship, sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), is available to anyone who has successfully completed at least 60 hours of accredited coursework, not just current students. The program is geared towards those interested in pursuing cyberinfrastructure and is designed to address the shortage of a workforce with the specialized skills needed to support advanced cyberinfrastructure operations. Visit the NCSA webpage to learn more. Questions? Contact Dan LaPine at lapine@illinois.edu.

Do you desire to obtain a faculty position upon completing your PhD or postdoc? Are you planning to go on the job market in the next 1-2 years? Then consider getting a head start on drafting your faculty application materials (cover letter, research and teaching statements) by participating in the Illinois Female Engineers in Academia Training (iFEAT) program. The program is open to female STEM graduate students and postdocs. Interested in learning more? Check out the iFEAT website or attend the info session. Participant applications are due by 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday, September 5. Questions? Contact illinoisFEAT@gmail.com.

The deadline for the Robert Ferber Dissertation Award and the Seymour Sudman Dissertation Award has been extended to Tuesday, September 5, 2017. Both of these awards are for excellence in survey research as part of a doctoral dissertation. Eligible dissertations will involve either methodological research related to surveys (including the broader area of cognition that can be applied to survey research) or will be based on primary survey data collection on any topic.

An award of up to $2,000 will be given to the winner of each of these two awards. All doctoral candidates whose dissertations meet the above criteria are eligible provided, (1) they are currently enrolled on, or recently graduated from, the UIUC campus, and (2) they successfully defended their dissertation proposal between May 28, 2016, and May 28, 2017. This refers to defense of the proposal, not the final dissertation. See details at the link above.

In June, Anna Waller, Predoctoral Fellow of Food Science and Human Nutrition, represented the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) at the 2017 U.S. Borlaug Summer Institute on Global Food Security. Led by Purdue University’s Center for Global Food Security, the 2017 Summer Institute provided 40 of the top graduate students from across the nation with an intensive introduction to global food security, with special emphasis on the utility of multidisciplinary teams and complex problem solving of real-world challenges. Read her Postcard from the Field, now on Grad Life!

Want your work featured on the Grad Life Blog? We are looking for "Postcards from the Field" submissions! Whether you are doing field work at home or abroad, attending an exciting conference, or doing captivating research or scholarship here at Illinois, we want to hear from you! Send a single photo and a short description of your work to gradcomm@illinois.edu with the subject line “Postcards from the Field.” If accepted, your image and description will be featured on the Grad Life Blog and on our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram feeds. Questions? Don’t hesitate to ask – we’d love to hear from you!

GradLinks is distributed weekly to graduate students and staff who work with graduate students. Please see our website for submission information.

If you will need disability-related accommodations in order to participate in any of the programs or events listed in GradLINKS, please email the contact person for the event. Early requests are strongly encouraged to allow sufficient time to meet your access needs.